December 10, 2025 • 24 mins
Meet the operating system behind the global box office.
We’re with Stuart Dickinson, CEO of Vista Group, a Kiwi software provider serving almost half the world’s major movie theatre chains. Stuart explains how Vista handles over $15 billion USD in transactions annually, with the shift from simple coke and popcorn sales to luxury dining and beverage service.
Hear about Vista's transformation to a higher-margin Software as a Service (SaaS) subscription model and the associated risks and opportunities. Find out about the real impact of streaming, why a theatrical release is still good for a film’s bottom line, and why theaters love horror movies. Plus, the financial metrics retail investors should watch to track Vista’s ongoing transformation.
Plus, Stuart explains his confidence in the future of the cinema experience—even in the Netflix age.
For more or to watch on YouTube—check out http://linktr.ee/sharedlunch
Shared Lunch is brought to you by Sharesies Australia Limited (ABN 94 648 811 830; AFSL 529893) in Australia and Sharesies Limited (NZ) in New Zealand. It is not financial advice. Information provided is general only and current at the time it’s provided, and does not take into account your objectives, financial situation and needs. We do not provide recommendations and you should always read the disclosure documents available from the product issuer before making a financial decision. Our disclosure documents and terms and conditions—including a Target Market Determination and IDPS Guide for Sharesies Australian customers—can be found on our relevant Australian or NZ website.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Shared Lunch. I'm Luke Smith of Chas's and
today we're going to be talking to Stuart Dickinson, CEO
of Vista Group, a global software provider that's powering many
of the world's cinemas, and we're doing that here at
the Silky Otter, a cozy boutique cinema in Ponsonby, Auckland.
We've just had a tour, we've watched the new Avatar trailer.
(00:26):
We just ordered some fancy nibbles online. But before we
get started, has some important information.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Investing involves the risk you might lose the money you
start with. We recommend talking to a licensed financial advisor.
We also recommend reading product disclosure documents before deciding to invest.
Everything you're about to see and here is current at
the time of recording.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Well, Stuart, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Thank you. It's always great to see our clients come
to life and where our software comes to life in
physical venues and manifestations. And Silky Otta is one of
the cool New Zealand cinema groups use full Vista Cloud,
which is the latest generation of our software, so it's
great to have you here today.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Vista is obviously one of New Zealand's more successful software
exporting stories, But unlike some of the others that are
pretty well known, I think it's not super obvious what
you do to the public. Can you tell us what
Vista does and how do we as moviegoers interact with Vista,
But we might not know that we are.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
So yeah, Vista has been around for almost thirty years.
We'll celebrate our thirty year anniversary next year. And it
started in New Zealand with a pretty simple idea. Really,
when you went to the movies, originally you went to
a box office and you might have gone and bought
some concessions, and that was two very different experiences. And
(01:47):
the big idea for Vista software was to bring those
two things together so that a cinema could service a
movie goer, sell them some popcorn and a ticket at
the same time. And so that's where it started. And
so today almost half of the cinemas in the world
use our software, which is a pretty amazing achievement. And
(02:09):
so if you go across New Zealand and Australia, event
Hoytz Village, Silkiota, Reading all use our software to power
the experiences that we as moviegoers have and so whether
or not that's selling the ticket, it's powering the mobile applications,
the websites, the kiosks, But then also in the back
(02:30):
office of the cinema, it's all about how does a
film actually get to be on screen, how does that
get programmed, how does that showtime appear to make sure
that when we go as movie goers, that experience is
actually really cool. And so our software supports all of
that part of the industry. So, yeah, pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
And the scale is amazing. I'm nearly fifty percent market share,
and we'll get to that founding story. So take us back.
How would that have been done.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
Pre so it was traditionally done with two different software applications,
or in some cases for some cinemas, it was as
simple as I can kind of remember getting it admit
one ticket when I went to a mall. You get
a ticket, somebody tore it off as you walked into
the auditorium. There was no such thing as numbered seating.
(03:20):
You basically sat wherever you wanted and that was your experience.
And so software has really revolutionized that. With Vista software,
we can work out where somebody's going to sit, we
can have them choose those seats in the auditorium. We
can then differentiate that experience, whether or not it's own lounges,
so the recliners, all those different types of experience is
(03:45):
are enabled through our software and so that's changed a lot.
And then on the food and beverage side, which is
for many cinemas and operators today just as important as
the movie experience, and in some cases even more as
they wrap our whole experiences around it. Traditionally it was
you went to the bar, you might have bought a
coke and popcorn, taken that back to your seat. Today
(04:07):
is we've just experienced the ability to order food in seat,
to have a much more sophisticated food and beverage menu,
to have that delivered to you is all part of
the great experience of what a cinema outing looks like today,
and that's something that our software powers.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
You must see some fascinating statistics through the platform. Maybe
one can you allude to how many tickets are going
through the platform in the last six months?
Speaker 3 (04:36):
A lot is a lot, is the answer, and so
we know that across our market share globally, there's about
fifteen odd billion US dollars of transactions that go through
our solutions each year, and that's continuing to increase as
the market changes. The experiences that people want when they
(04:59):
go to the cinema is becoming a lot more expansive,
and so the spend per admission is increasing because it's
gone from the coke and the popcorn to hey, I
want burgers, I want wine, I want the whole experience,
maybe some brownie or something like that to finish it off.
What we're seeing and cinema experiences is that it's catering
for all types of people. One of my earliest memories
(05:22):
as a boy growing up, first time my parents let
me sort of go to the mall alone was go
to them all with your friends, go to see a movie.
And that was safe and it was something to do,
and I really remember that as an experience. That experience
still exists today, but there's also a whole heap more sophisticated,
like really sophisticated experiences. And I was just in read
(05:47):
in Saudi Arabia in Dubai a couple of weeks ago
and touring some of the cinemas there, and they are
the most beautiful facilities that you've ever seen, and they
wrap a movie and this really really high end food
and beverage plus seating type experience, and so cinemas of
(06:10):
today are very different to what we saw in the past.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
So speaking to the scale of vista, where are you
across the globe and you know how many sites, for
example you operating it?
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Yeah, so we think about the market two ways. We
think about what we call enterprise cinemas, and so that's
our clients who have more than twenty screens, which is
actually quite quite a large number of screens. And so
about forty six percent of the world of those cinemas,
and if we exclude India, Russia and China, so forty
(06:46):
six percent of the rest of the world use our software.
So we are very very present. And then we have
what's called the small market, which is for operators less
than twenty screens, and we have a product there that's
called VS which is our small market or indie product,
and we've got about twelve hundred sites running on that
(07:09):
platform as well. So forty six percent equates for us
to about forty seven hundred cinema sites, which is pretty
big number when you think about it. You put the
VS number together, so there's almost six thousand cinema sites
around the world who use Vista software.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
I do want to go to industry trends and hear
more about your strategy. But before we do, founding story,
can we start up here that we're about to hit
the thirtieth anniversary very shortly, can you take us through
that founding story?
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
So Vista Group was founded by Murray Holdaway and a
group of other kei We entrepreneurs and it really started
they were running a software development company and they got
an opportunity as Village Australia was expanding and looking to
come into New Zealand to build the ticketing application for them.
(08:04):
And so that's where the idea comes from. And if
you go right back to the name Vista, it stands
for this Village Integrated Ticketing Application is how you get
through it. And so they then built the company continue
to expand, so followed Village around the world as it expanded,
but also started to create the offer for more and
(08:28):
more organizations. Company listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange
in twenty fourteen and that gave the company a lot
more equity. We went through a process of acquiring a
number of add ons and additional components to the business.
We went further into film and distribution, which is really
the studio side of this industry and supporting that as well,
(08:51):
and so those products are what's been stitched together today
to really power the ecosystem that we're building.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
So revenue wise, I think the last results was six
months to thirty June about seventy seven million revenue, So
that makes you a run rate full year of Circo
one hundred and fifty million, And I guess in simple terms,
how does Vista make money?
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Yeah, so.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
We're guiding this year public company, we're guiding to around
one hundred and sixty seven of a million. Is one
hundred and sixty seven million. Key we of revenue and
the way we make money. Traditionally when we started the
business was on selling perpetual licenses for the software, so
a client would want to buy the software, would charge
(09:35):
them fee for that and some maintenance associated with that. Today,
we're transforming that model into a subscription model, so it's
what we call SaaS or software as a service revenue.
The client pays a subscription. That subscription has a component
that's fixed based on usually the number of sites that
we're supporting or something like that metric, and then it
(09:57):
also has a variable component associated with it as well,
which is really about the revenue that's going through our
platform that we're enabling the cinema. So that's how we're
growing the business. And our big sort of focus at
the moment is moving all of those on premise clients
or the clients we sold that perpetual license to to
(10:19):
SAS into the cloud as we call it. That means
that we're doing a whole lot more for them. We're
actually starting to run the software. We're starting to really
enable and deliver that for them rather than just shipping
them the CD and keeping that keeping that upgrading. So
transforming the business and growing quite quickly.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Yeah, and I imagine one of the benefits of doing
that is it's on a scalable product that the whole
team are developing that all sites get to use. Then
on the flip side, helps grow a higher margin, higher
growth business.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Yeah, that's absolutely the ambition, and we're still early on
the journey in terms of moving the client to the cloud.
At the end of this year, we'll have about thirty
just over thirty five percent of the client base who
are on some step of the journey in terms of
moving them to cloud, but it's going to take us
a number of years to get all the way through,
and I think that's what's exciting. We're continuing to accelerate
(11:16):
the business and really enable that transformation performance wise.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
What are some of the things that retail investors should
be keeping an eye on the signal? What are some
of the metrics that you and the team are really
focused on.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
So we're focused on what we call recurring revenue growth,
and so we have two types of revenue in our business.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
We have.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Recurring revenue, which is really the SaaS or the maintenance revenue,
and so that's what we're really trying to grow quickly.
And then we have what's called non recurring revenue, and
that's for things like services, hardware, etc. That will stay
relatively flat over time. Our ambition is to grow those
recurring revenue streams. That's really a good sign of how
(12:02):
we're going in terms of getting clients onto the new platform,
growing our reach, and growing our market.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
And churn. How does churn compare to a typical business
software benchmark? Is there you know, is there a risk
of that migration that they could be going to are
the many competitors.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Yeah, So I think when you ask a client to
move to cloud software, regardless of whether or not it's
Vista or anybody, you create a churn moment. You're effectively
asking the client to think about that purchase again. So
there's always there's always a risk. We're really focused on
making that process as easy and as simple as possible
(12:42):
for them to make that decision to get onto the
new platform. In terms of global competitors, there are not
a lot. In fact, there isn't really another global competitor
given our market share. Certainly within specific countries, there are
some competitors for parts of our product suite, or there
may be a country specific version of the competitor as well,
(13:05):
and so we try to be really thoughtful about that.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
I think it's important to address the elephant in the room,
which is what impact is streaming having on the cinema industry.
And you look at there's a cost of living crisis.
You know, you might just squeeze it in from the
couch because it's convenient, but is it really having an impact?
What are the numbers saying and what's your view?
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Yeah, I think all parts, all parts of the world
are in slightly different places, and so Vista as a
global company is exposed to box office and trends that
exist in the Middle East and Europe and North America
and in this land, and so each market is growing
differently and is having different different outcomes. If you take
(13:50):
a step up and think about entertainment or out of
home entertainment or experiences. Shared experiences something that we as
humans like, whether or not it's going to the restaurant,
to the cinema, out to do some sort of type
of experience. And so I think what's happening with cinema
as well is that we've proved and continue to prove
(14:12):
that when there's great content, a great movie like Barbie Oppenheimer, etc.
People come out and droves. And so we're seeing that
at the moment with the second installment A Wicked we've
seen it as Zootopia has just opened really recently as well,
and I know there's a whole heap of people looking
forward to the third installment in the Avatar series when
that comes. And so that shared experience is something that
(14:37):
people come out for and really want to continue to embrace,
and you then see it down in genres as well,
and so one of the most interesting things I learned
is that moviegoer attendance over indexes on horror. And so
when you go in and think about that a little
bit more, it's because ultimately, when if you're a horror fan,
(14:58):
you want to be in a dark groom and you
want to scream with somebody else because it's a pretty
cool experience. And so horror movies perform super well as
a genre in theater, and we're seeing that with Five
Nights at Freddy two, which just opened last weekend. It's
overachieving on what they thought it was going to do.
And so I think the reasons we got a cinema
(15:20):
are still there. It's a great experience and it's a
night out. It's something that we can really joy and
enjoy in terms of that shared experience. What's been wrapped
round it now in terms of food and entertainment and
all of those things is making it a much more
complete experience. What I can say is that you know,
you can't get an Imax screen in your front room.
(15:41):
You cannot have the earth shaking sound and the big
screen of that experience, and so you're unlikely to have
somebody delivering food and beverage right to your seat as
well at home, and so all of those things transform
the experience and make for something make for something pretty
union in terms of streaming, and so streaming is convenience,
(16:05):
and so I think we all probably have one or
multiple different streaming services at home. What we do know
is that when a movie has a theatrical release, and
so that's when it appears in a cinema first, it's
more likely to perform better in streaming. And that's because
the cultural moment that happened when the movie was launched
(16:27):
in the theater, the marketing that was put behind it,
and all of that sort of social buzz that was
created by the launch of the movie that then flows
into streaming as well. Because if something just shows up
on a streaming platform other than appearing on a tile,
you're probably not necessarily likely to know a lot about it.
(16:47):
And so what we're seeing now is a lot of
movies have been made, they've been put in theaters first,
and then they go to streaming, and so I think
that trend's probably going to continue the way. And if
you think about box office, the way to make money
is to put a movie in a theater. First you
make the box office money, and then you make more
(17:08):
money from a streaming perspective, So it makes commercial sense
to put it in a theater, and then it makes
I think audience sense as well.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Interesting too that you know, people love a fright, but
they want someone to cling to.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
They turned out they do.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
One of the things we talked about earlier was that
rich personalized experience. And I think even Silkiota, you know,
the intimacy and the experience that you're providing here alludes
to where things are going. But what are some of
the cool innovations that you're delivering that support that.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
I think it starts with. And if you think about
the Silkiota experience, it's highly curated. Each week I get
an email from Silkiota which tells me what movies are
going to come out and I can and that it's
thoughtfully targeted towards me and what I like to see.
And so our software enables that it understands the type
of movie like it then starts to create personalization for
(18:03):
me with other titles and what they may be coming
coming out. And so I think it just goes to
much more of a trend around software that enables that
personalized experience and really delivering that outcome as opposed to
just fronting up to say, hey, I want to see
a movie and not really being sure what you're going
(18:25):
to see. And so moviegoers we like to know from
a loyalty perspective, maybe we're subscribing. Particularly in the US
and parts of Europe now subscription programs are really really
taking off. And so what that means is you might
buy a subscription, maybe a monthly payment, unlimited movies or
(18:46):
a certain number of movies really resonating.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Well, so where your business model is a subscription to
those cinemas is allowing them to create this creating a
subscription model cool as well if you pull off what
you want to do, what does vist like over the
next sort of five years. Yeah, So we've set a
financial ambition for the organization to deliver what we call
as one hundred percent platform and so that's about three
(19:12):
hundred and fifteen million dollars a year of arr or
annualized recurring revenue. That's just over double where we're at
at the moment. And also while delivering that, to deliver
about six thousand sites. And so if you think today
we've got about forty seven hundred enterprise sites. We want
(19:32):
to grow that as well, so we've got some pretty
powerful financial outcomes that we're looking for. But I really
think from my perspective, the role that we play in
this industry cinema, film distribution, connecting those experiences is really
really important, and so I think as an industry, we
(19:54):
have a role to help enable that, to help power
that ecosystem, to provide the data, the ends sites, to
let people make better decisions around what movies go and
what cinemas at what time, and then how they stay
there and how that whole experience is monetized. Because ultimately,
we want a healthy and growing ecosystem, and if we
(20:16):
can help power that, then that's pretty exciting as well.
Speaking of culture, I mean one of the things I'm
imagining working in the cinema industry as a group of
movie buffs, there's posters of movies and actors on the wall.
But what is it like working in a technology company
that services the cinema industry.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
I can definitely tell you that, yes, we have lots
of movie posters in our Auckland acront office, so they
expected that is that's great and I think ultimately we're
a technology company. We're delivering services and solutions to the
entertainment industry, or specifically the out of home entertainment industry,
(20:57):
and for us, that's a pretty unique privilege. It's pretty
cool to be to be able to do that. There
is absolutely no doubt that there are some pretty out
there moments in the industry. I've had an opportunity to
be in the same room as Leonardo DiCaprio and some
other pretty cool acts.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
I was going to ask you if you've got some
good celeb gos.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Yeah, no, goss, but certainly through industry events and experiences,
we get to see and share in some pretty cool stories.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Running a global software company from New Zealand, obviously forty
six percent global share in an industry is huge. What
does the day to day look like? And I guess
alluding to investors just to understand what it really takes
to run a business of that scale from little al
tel Ad.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Yeah, so today we've got about seven hundred and fifty
in the Vista team. About three hundred ish of those
are based in New Zealand, the rest of them based
around the world, and so it is a truly twenty
four x seven business. And the interesting thing about our
business is that it peaks towards the end of the week,
and so it peaks on Friday Saturday nights as more
(22:09):
and more people go to the go to the movies,
and so the opportunities are amazing because we get to
have really cool conversations with different clients and different parts
of the world and different languages. Our software is multi language.
It is what's called physicalized, so it's able to be
operated in different parts of Europe where there's a whole
(22:30):
lot of different legislation, and that is really powerful in
terms of differentiation for the software. It's what makes Vista
really unique. And in terms of running that it means
that we spend a lot of time. My leadership team
is global. We spend a lot of time communicating, get
to spend a lot of time on planes out talking
(22:53):
to clients and our team to make sure that we're
heading in the right direction.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Finally, most people who are listening, hopefully they're to go
off on their well earned summer break. What's a top
flick you're recommending for the summer holidays, Stuart.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Look, if you've got a young family, you can't go
past Utopia. I think it's going to be Oh, that
is very cool.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
I'll have to put that one down on my list.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Playing it's playing really well. If you have been following
the Avatar saga, the third one is going to look great.
Wicked is out there and doing really well. And I
think what the message this summer would be is that
there's something for everybody at the movies and so get
out there enjoy it. There is totally different experiences you
(23:35):
can have in New Zealand, whether or not it's at
the end of a mall and really enjoying that experience
or in the super curated gold class type experience that
is available in some of our cinemas. You can have
it all in New Zealand. So go have fun and
enjoy it and we'll see you at the movies.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Hey, look, Shure, really thanks for having us. This has
been a really fun conversation. Really enjoyed learning about the
story and obviously thanks for hosting us at the Silkyota.
Look at this, Look at this the food.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
The food has arrived. That is great, and look I
might knock off for the day. Well, this is just
an example of some of the restaurant quality food you
get when you go to the cinema nowadays, and so
it's pretty cool to be able to experience out here
as well.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Well.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Thank you, thank you.
Welcome to Shared Lunch. I'm Luke Smith of Chas's and
today we're going to be talking to Stuart Dickinson, CEO
of Vista Group, a global software provider that's powering many
of the world's cinemas, and we're doing that here at
the Silky Otter, a cozy boutique cinema in Ponsonby, Auckland.
We've just had a tour, we've watched the new Avatar trailer.
(00:26):
We just ordered some fancy nibbles online. But before we
get started, has some important information.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Investing involves the risk you might lose the money you
start with. We recommend talking to a licensed financial advisor.
We also recommend reading product disclosure documents before deciding to invest.
Everything you're about to see and here is current at
the time of recording.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Well, Stuart, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Thank you. It's always great to see our clients come
to life and where our software comes to life in
physical venues and manifestations. And Silky Otta is one of
the cool New Zealand cinema groups use full Vista Cloud,
which is the latest generation of our software, so it's
great to have you here today.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Vista is obviously one of New Zealand's more successful software
exporting stories, But unlike some of the others that are
pretty well known, I think it's not super obvious what
you do to the public. Can you tell us what
Vista does and how do we as moviegoers interact with Vista,
But we might not know that we are.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
So yeah, Vista has been around for almost thirty years.
We'll celebrate our thirty year anniversary next year. And it
started in New Zealand with a pretty simple idea. Really,
when you went to the movies, originally you went to
a box office and you might have gone and bought
some concessions, and that was two very different experiences. And
(01:47):
the big idea for Vista software was to bring those
two things together so that a cinema could service a
movie goer, sell them some popcorn and a ticket at
the same time. And so that's where it started. And
so today almost half of the cinemas in the world
use our software, which is a pretty amazing achievement. And
(02:09):
so if you go across New Zealand and Australia, event
Hoytz Village, Silkiota, Reading all use our software to power
the experiences that we as moviegoers have and so whether
or not that's selling the ticket, it's powering the mobile applications,
the websites, the kiosks, But then also in the back
(02:30):
office of the cinema, it's all about how does a
film actually get to be on screen, how does that
get programmed, how does that showtime appear to make sure
that when we go as movie goers, that experience is
actually really cool. And so our software supports all of
that part of the industry. So, yeah, pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
And the scale is amazing. I'm nearly fifty percent market share,
and we'll get to that founding story. So take us back.
How would that have been done.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
Pre so it was traditionally done with two different software applications,
or in some cases for some cinemas, it was as
simple as I can kind of remember getting it admit
one ticket when I went to a mall. You get
a ticket, somebody tore it off as you walked into
the auditorium. There was no such thing as numbered seating.
(03:20):
You basically sat wherever you wanted and that was your experience.
And so software has really revolutionized that. With Vista software,
we can work out where somebody's going to sit, we
can have them choose those seats in the auditorium. We
can then differentiate that experience, whether or not it's own lounges,
so the recliners, all those different types of experience is
(03:45):
are enabled through our software and so that's changed a lot.
And then on the food and beverage side, which is
for many cinemas and operators today just as important as
the movie experience, and in some cases even more as
they wrap our whole experiences around it. Traditionally it was
you went to the bar, you might have bought a
coke and popcorn, taken that back to your seat. Today
(04:07):
is we've just experienced the ability to order food in seat,
to have a much more sophisticated food and beverage menu,
to have that delivered to you is all part of
the great experience of what a cinema outing looks like today,
and that's something that our software powers.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
You must see some fascinating statistics through the platform. Maybe
one can you allude to how many tickets are going
through the platform in the last six months?
Speaker 3 (04:36):
A lot is a lot, is the answer, and so
we know that across our market share globally, there's about
fifteen odd billion US dollars of transactions that go through
our solutions each year, and that's continuing to increase as
the market changes. The experiences that people want when they
(04:59):
go to the cinema is becoming a lot more expansive,
and so the spend per admission is increasing because it's
gone from the coke and the popcorn to hey, I
want burgers, I want wine, I want the whole experience,
maybe some brownie or something like that to finish it off.
What we're seeing and cinema experiences is that it's catering
for all types of people. One of my earliest memories
(05:22):
as a boy growing up, first time my parents let
me sort of go to the mall alone was go
to them all with your friends, go to see a movie.
And that was safe and it was something to do,
and I really remember that as an experience. That experience
still exists today, but there's also a whole heap more sophisticated,
like really sophisticated experiences. And I was just in read
(05:47):
in Saudi Arabia in Dubai a couple of weeks ago
and touring some of the cinemas there, and they are
the most beautiful facilities that you've ever seen, and they
wrap a movie and this really really high end food
and beverage plus seating type experience, and so cinemas of
(06:10):
today are very different to what we saw in the past.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
So speaking to the scale of vista, where are you
across the globe and you know how many sites, for
example you operating it?
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Yeah, so we think about the market two ways. We
think about what we call enterprise cinemas, and so that's
our clients who have more than twenty screens, which is
actually quite quite a large number of screens. And so
about forty six percent of the world of those cinemas,
and if we exclude India, Russia and China, so forty
(06:46):
six percent of the rest of the world use our software.
So we are very very present. And then we have
what's called the small market, which is for operators less
than twenty screens, and we have a product there that's
called VS which is our small market or indie product,
and we've got about twelve hundred sites running on that
(07:09):
platform as well. So forty six percent equates for us
to about forty seven hundred cinema sites, which is pretty
big number when you think about it. You put the
VS number together, so there's almost six thousand cinema sites
around the world who use Vista software.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
I do want to go to industry trends and hear
more about your strategy. But before we do, founding story,
can we start up here that we're about to hit
the thirtieth anniversary very shortly, can you take us through
that founding story?
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
So Vista Group was founded by Murray Holdaway and a
group of other kei We entrepreneurs and it really started
they were running a software development company and they got
an opportunity as Village Australia was expanding and looking to
come into New Zealand to build the ticketing application for them.
(08:04):
And so that's where the idea comes from. And if
you go right back to the name Vista, it stands
for this Village Integrated Ticketing Application is how you get
through it. And so they then built the company continue
to expand, so followed Village around the world as it expanded,
but also started to create the offer for more and
(08:28):
more organizations. Company listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange
in twenty fourteen and that gave the company a lot
more equity. We went through a process of acquiring a
number of add ons and additional components to the business.
We went further into film and distribution, which is really
the studio side of this industry and supporting that as well,
(08:51):
and so those products are what's been stitched together today
to really power the ecosystem that we're building.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
So revenue wise, I think the last results was six
months to thirty June about seventy seven million revenue, So
that makes you a run rate full year of Circo
one hundred and fifty million, And I guess in simple terms,
how does Vista make money?
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Yeah, so.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
We're guiding this year public company, we're guiding to around
one hundred and sixty seven of a million. Is one
hundred and sixty seven million. Key we of revenue and
the way we make money. Traditionally when we started the
business was on selling perpetual licenses for the software, so
a client would want to buy the software, would charge
(09:35):
them fee for that and some maintenance associated with that. Today,
we're transforming that model into a subscription model, so it's
what we call SaaS or software as a service revenue.
The client pays a subscription. That subscription has a component
that's fixed based on usually the number of sites that
we're supporting or something like that metric, and then it
(09:57):
also has a variable component associated with it as well,
which is really about the revenue that's going through our
platform that we're enabling the cinema. So that's how we're
growing the business. And our big sort of focus at
the moment is moving all of those on premise clients
or the clients we sold that perpetual license to to
(10:19):
SAS into the cloud as we call it. That means
that we're doing a whole lot more for them. We're
actually starting to run the software. We're starting to really
enable and deliver that for them rather than just shipping
them the CD and keeping that keeping that upgrading. So
transforming the business and growing quite quickly.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Yeah, and I imagine one of the benefits of doing
that is it's on a scalable product that the whole
team are developing that all sites get to use. Then
on the flip side, helps grow a higher margin, higher
growth business.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Yeah, that's absolutely the ambition, and we're still early on
the journey in terms of moving the client to the cloud.
At the end of this year, we'll have about thirty
just over thirty five percent of the client base who
are on some step of the journey in terms of
moving them to cloud, but it's going to take us
a number of years to get all the way through,
and I think that's what's exciting. We're continuing to accelerate
(11:16):
the business and really enable that transformation performance wise.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
What are some of the things that retail investors should
be keeping an eye on the signal? What are some
of the metrics that you and the team are really
focused on.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
So we're focused on what we call recurring revenue growth,
and so we have two types of revenue in our business.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
We have.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Recurring revenue, which is really the SaaS or the maintenance revenue,
and so that's what we're really trying to grow quickly.
And then we have what's called non recurring revenue, and
that's for things like services, hardware, etc. That will stay
relatively flat over time. Our ambition is to grow those
recurring revenue streams. That's really a good sign of how
(12:02):
we're going in terms of getting clients onto the new platform,
growing our reach, and growing our market.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
And churn. How does churn compare to a typical business
software benchmark? Is there you know, is there a risk
of that migration that they could be going to are
the many competitors.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Yeah, So I think when you ask a client to
move to cloud software, regardless of whether or not it's
Vista or anybody, you create a churn moment. You're effectively
asking the client to think about that purchase again. So
there's always there's always a risk. We're really focused on
making that process as easy and as simple as possible
(12:42):
for them to make that decision to get onto the
new platform. In terms of global competitors, there are not
a lot. In fact, there isn't really another global competitor
given our market share. Certainly within specific countries, there are
some competitors for parts of our product suite, or there
may be a country specific version of the competitor as well,
(13:05):
and so we try to be really thoughtful about that.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
I think it's important to address the elephant in the room,
which is what impact is streaming having on the cinema industry.
And you look at there's a cost of living crisis.
You know, you might just squeeze it in from the
couch because it's convenient, but is it really having an impact?
What are the numbers saying and what's your view?
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Yeah, I think all parts, all parts of the world
are in slightly different places, and so Vista as a
global company is exposed to box office and trends that
exist in the Middle East and Europe and North America
and in this land, and so each market is growing
differently and is having different different outcomes. If you take
(13:50):
a step up and think about entertainment or out of
home entertainment or experiences. Shared experiences something that we as
humans like, whether or not it's going to the restaurant,
to the cinema, out to do some sort of type
of experience. And so I think what's happening with cinema
as well is that we've proved and continue to prove
(14:12):
that when there's great content, a great movie like Barbie Oppenheimer, etc.
People come out and droves. And so we're seeing that
at the moment with the second installment A Wicked we've
seen it as Zootopia has just opened really recently as well,
and I know there's a whole heap of people looking
forward to the third installment in the Avatar series when
that comes. And so that shared experience is something that
(14:37):
people come out for and really want to continue to embrace,
and you then see it down in genres as well,
and so one of the most interesting things I learned
is that moviegoer attendance over indexes on horror. And so
when you go in and think about that a little
bit more, it's because ultimately, when if you're a horror fan,
(14:58):
you want to be in a dark groom and you
want to scream with somebody else because it's a pretty
cool experience. And so horror movies perform super well as
a genre in theater, and we're seeing that with Five
Nights at Freddy two, which just opened last weekend. It's
overachieving on what they thought it was going to do.
And so I think the reasons we got a cinema
(15:20):
are still there. It's a great experience and it's a
night out. It's something that we can really joy and
enjoy in terms of that shared experience. What's been wrapped
round it now in terms of food and entertainment and
all of those things is making it a much more
complete experience. What I can say is that you know,
you can't get an Imax screen in your front room.
(15:41):
You cannot have the earth shaking sound and the big
screen of that experience, and so you're unlikely to have
somebody delivering food and beverage right to your seat as
well at home, and so all of those things transform
the experience and make for something make for something pretty
union in terms of streaming, and so streaming is convenience,
(16:05):
and so I think we all probably have one or
multiple different streaming services at home. What we do know
is that when a movie has a theatrical release, and
so that's when it appears in a cinema first, it's
more likely to perform better in streaming. And that's because
the cultural moment that happened when the movie was launched
(16:27):
in the theater, the marketing that was put behind it,
and all of that sort of social buzz that was
created by the launch of the movie that then flows
into streaming as well. Because if something just shows up
on a streaming platform other than appearing on a tile,
you're probably not necessarily likely to know a lot about it.
(16:47):
And so what we're seeing now is a lot of
movies have been made, they've been put in theaters first,
and then they go to streaming, and so I think
that trend's probably going to continue the way. And if
you think about box office, the way to make money
is to put a movie in a theater. First you
make the box office money, and then you make more
(17:08):
money from a streaming perspective, So it makes commercial sense
to put it in a theater, and then it makes
I think audience sense as well.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Interesting too that you know, people love a fright, but
they want someone to cling to.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
They turned out they do.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
One of the things we talked about earlier was that
rich personalized experience. And I think even Silkiota, you know,
the intimacy and the experience that you're providing here alludes
to where things are going. But what are some of
the cool innovations that you're delivering that support that.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
I think it starts with. And if you think about
the Silkiota experience, it's highly curated. Each week I get
an email from Silkiota which tells me what movies are
going to come out and I can and that it's
thoughtfully targeted towards me and what I like to see.
And so our software enables that it understands the type
of movie like it then starts to create personalization for
(18:03):
me with other titles and what they may be coming
coming out. And so I think it just goes to
much more of a trend around software that enables that
personalized experience and really delivering that outcome as opposed to
just fronting up to say, hey, I want to see
a movie and not really being sure what you're going
(18:25):
to see. And so moviegoers we like to know from
a loyalty perspective, maybe we're subscribing. Particularly in the US
and parts of Europe now subscription programs are really really
taking off. And so what that means is you might
buy a subscription, maybe a monthly payment, unlimited movies or
(18:46):
a certain number of movies really resonating.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Well, so where your business model is a subscription to
those cinemas is allowing them to create this creating a
subscription model cool as well if you pull off what
you want to do, what does vist like over the
next sort of five years. Yeah, So we've set a
financial ambition for the organization to deliver what we call
as one hundred percent platform and so that's about three
(19:12):
hundred and fifteen million dollars a year of arr or
annualized recurring revenue. That's just over double where we're at
at the moment. And also while delivering that, to deliver
about six thousand sites. And so if you think today
we've got about forty seven hundred enterprise sites. We want
(19:32):
to grow that as well, so we've got some pretty
powerful financial outcomes that we're looking for. But I really
think from my perspective, the role that we play in
this industry cinema, film distribution, connecting those experiences is really
really important, and so I think as an industry, we
(19:54):
have a role to help enable that, to help power
that ecosystem, to provide the data, the ends sites, to
let people make better decisions around what movies go and
what cinemas at what time, and then how they stay
there and how that whole experience is monetized. Because ultimately,
we want a healthy and growing ecosystem, and if we
(20:16):
can help power that, then that's pretty exciting as well.
Speaking of culture, I mean one of the things I'm
imagining working in the cinema industry as a group of
movie buffs, there's posters of movies and actors on the wall.
But what is it like working in a technology company
that services the cinema industry.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
I can definitely tell you that, yes, we have lots
of movie posters in our Auckland acront office, so they
expected that is that's great and I think ultimately we're
a technology company. We're delivering services and solutions to the
entertainment industry, or specifically the out of home entertainment industry,
(20:57):
and for us, that's a pretty unique privilege. It's pretty
cool to be to be able to do that. There
is absolutely no doubt that there are some pretty out
there moments in the industry. I've had an opportunity to
be in the same room as Leonardo DiCaprio and some
other pretty cool acts.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
I was going to ask you if you've got some
good celeb gos.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Yeah, no, goss, but certainly through industry events and experiences,
we get to see and share in some pretty cool stories.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Running a global software company from New Zealand, obviously forty
six percent global share in an industry is huge. What
does the day to day look like? And I guess
alluding to investors just to understand what it really takes
to run a business of that scale from little al
tel Ad.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Yeah, so today we've got about seven hundred and fifty
in the Vista team. About three hundred ish of those
are based in New Zealand, the rest of them based
around the world, and so it is a truly twenty
four x seven business. And the interesting thing about our
business is that it peaks towards the end of the week,
and so it peaks on Friday Saturday nights as more
(22:09):
and more people go to the go to the movies,
and so the opportunities are amazing because we get to
have really cool conversations with different clients and different parts
of the world and different languages. Our software is multi language.
It is what's called physicalized, so it's able to be
operated in different parts of Europe where there's a whole
(22:30):
lot of different legislation, and that is really powerful in
terms of differentiation for the software. It's what makes Vista
really unique. And in terms of running that it means
that we spend a lot of time. My leadership team
is global. We spend a lot of time communicating, get
to spend a lot of time on planes out talking
(22:53):
to clients and our team to make sure that we're
heading in the right direction.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Finally, most people who are listening, hopefully they're to go
off on their well earned summer break. What's a top
flick you're recommending for the summer holidays, Stuart.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Look, if you've got a young family, you can't go
past Utopia. I think it's going to be Oh, that
is very cool.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
I'll have to put that one down on my list.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Playing it's playing really well. If you have been following
the Avatar saga, the third one is going to look great.
Wicked is out there and doing really well. And I
think what the message this summer would be is that
there's something for everybody at the movies and so get
out there enjoy it. There is totally different experiences you
(23:35):
can have in New Zealand, whether or not it's at
the end of a mall and really enjoying that experience
or in the super curated gold class type experience that
is available in some of our cinemas. You can have
it all in New Zealand. So go have fun and
enjoy it and we'll see you at the movies.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Hey, look, Shure, really thanks for having us. This has
been a really fun conversation. Really enjoyed learning about the
story and obviously thanks for hosting us at the Silkyota.
Look at this, Look at this the food.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
The food has arrived. That is great, and look I
might knock off for the day. Well, this is just
an example of some of the restaurant quality food you
get when you go to the cinema nowadays, and so
it's pretty cool to be able to experience out here
as well.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Well.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Thank you, thank you.
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